The Will to Carry On
by OUATLovr
Summary: "I was willing to die," Sam insisted, but they both heard the words he didn't speak. "I wanted to die."


The bridge was the first place where Dean felt they could stop without having to worry about Crowley and Abbadon. There was also something about it, something comforting about the crashing waves lapping against the thin railings that encompassed either side.

Or perhaps it was at this point that he decided Dean could no longer bear to glance over at the passenger seat, worriedly eying the blood dribbling down Sam's face and waiting for the silence to pass, for the scourge that would surely follow.

He pretended not to notice the way Sam moved to the other side of the bridge once they got out of the car, Cas following him with a confused expression marring his features. Pretended not to notice how Sam leaned against the railing as if trying to get as far away from Dean as possible, or that he stared down at his hands as if they held all the answers, absentmindedly wiping at the blood drizzling along his cheeks. His face, or, what Dean could see of it hidden beneath his long hair, was twisted in pain and exhaustion.

But it wasn't just pain and tiredness. Dean could see the anger there, even if Sam refused to look at him. Could see it in the tenseness of his shoulders, or the exhaustion on his face that wasn't just from excorcising the angel, or the silence that he awarded Dean every time the older Winchester glanced his way.

Cas lifted a hand to Sam's forehead, fingers spreading over the open wounds dripping down his face, and, just like that, they were gone. A white light passed over Sam at the angel's healing touch, and he squeezed his eyes shut, cringing.

"You feel better?" Cas spoke, and Dean didn't know if it was a statement or a question. Sam nodded feebly, not meeting his eyes.

"A little, yeah." He wouldn't meet Dean's eyes, either. Besides the pain and anger, Dean could easily read the guilt his brother burdened himself with.

Guilt. As if Sam had anything to be guilty about, in this situation. As if everything that Gadreel had done did not rest on Dean's shoulders.

Dean sighed, making his way over to them with hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. Glancing at Cas for an explanation as for why Sam wasn't better immediately.

He had done this. It was his fault that Sam was in pain now, and the anger radiating off the younger Winchester was well deserved.

Dean knew that. He wasn't sure if Sam did. And yet, knowing did not make it better, because Dean would do it all again in a heartbeat, given the chance, despite everything that had happened because of it.

For Sam.

"It'll take time to fully heal," Cas explained, as close to an apology as he would get. "We'll have to...do it in stages."

Sam just nodded, and Dean knew that he wasn't really listening to the angel's words.

Dean sighed, unable to bear the angry silence from Sam a moment longer when he knew the storm hung just under Sam's lips. "All right, let me hear it."

Cas hasn't handled conflict between the two brothers well since taking on Sam's hallucinations. Without a word, he turned his back, walking away to give them some semblance of privacy.

Sam shrugged noncomittally, and the silence from him was worse than any rant he might have subjected Dean to.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked tiredly, not looking up. "That I'm pissed? Okay, I am. I'm pissed." The words didn't sound quite as menacing as Dean had been imagining, and he blinked at Sammy.

Dean tensed for the torrent that he knew was coming, but found that it wasn't what he'd been expecting.

"You lied to me," Sam said instead, no more real emotion behind the words than any he had spoken since being rid of Gadreel. Then, in a softer voice, though slightly more accusatory, "Again."

"I didn't have a choice," Dean answered immediately, because no matter what other cruel words passed between them tonight, he wanted Sammy to understand that. Needed Sammy to understand that, even if he hated Dean for it.

Sam scoffed. "I was _ready _to die, Dean," and he sounded so broken when he said those words, so exhausted, that a flash of guilt Dean was determined to keep down crept up, and he felt a wetness prickling at the corners of his eyes.

Dean remembered Death's talk with Sam then, the talk that had convinced him to go to such desperate measures in the first place.

_"If I go with you, can you promise that this time it will be final? That if I'm dead, I stay dead? Nobody can reverse it, nobody can deal it away, and nobody else can get _hurt _because of me."_

And he had done it anyway, had allowed Gadreel to posess Sam, had tricked Sam into it, because Sam may have been ready to die, but Dean was not ready to let him go. Not now, after everything they had suffered through together.

And now...Kevin, and who knew how many countless others, were suffering for it. Were being hurt because of Dean's selfishness, because Dean had made a decision that Sam Winchester would not have wanted.

That was on him, because he had known, even when he agreed to trick Sam, that his brother would have never agreed to it.

Dean swallowed hard. "I know." He thought of Sam, after Dean fell to Purgatory, of himself, letting Sam go to the Cage and not once trying to save him. Of how _wrong_ it had felt, that they shouldn't both be fighting tooth and nail to stay together. "But I wouldn't let you, because that's not in me."

He had promised himself that, not so very long ago, when the words meant even more than they did now.

"So what," Sam snapped, and _there_ was the fire, the anger, for the first time that night. It was almost a relief to hear it, now. "You decide to trick me into being posessed by some psycho angel?"

"I saved your life," Dean said through a grimace, and the words sound hollow.

"So what?" Sam hissed, more vehemence behind the words than Dean had expected. As if saving Sam's life was the greatest mistake that Dean could ever make.

"I was _willing _to die." Sam insisted, his voice shaking, but they both heard the words he didn't speak. _"I wanted to die."_

_I wasn't willing to let you go, Sammy. _

"And now...Kevin..." he couldn't say the words, and Dean interrupted before he had the chance to condemn himself for yet another of _Dean's_ crimes, to swallow down the guilt for something Dean had done.

"No. That is _not _on you," he sounded, he thought, a bit like a parent, reprimanding their child, and he only hoped that Sam did not make this comparison, as well.

Sam scoffed again, the look of disbelief on his face cutting straight to Dean's soul.

"Kevin's blood is on my hands," Dean gritted out, ignoring Sam's confusion at the words. He didn't understand. He could never understand, because he was Sam, but Dean could at least attempt to break through to him.

He couldn't let Sam blame himself for Kevin, or anything else Gadreel had done. And he had to make sure Sam knew that, before he left.

"And that ain't ever coming clean. I'll burn for that." He ignored the tears that shone in Sam's eyes, because those were his fault, as well. "I will," he continued, because he knew that Sam couldn't believe him.

Despite everything, everything which was on Dean, not Sam, the younger Winchester would still blame himself.

"But I will find Gadreel. And I will end that son of a bitch." He said the words with a conviction that he wasn't sure he felt, at the moment, but that Sam needed to hear. Then came the words that physically hurt, that he wasn't sure he could utter until this moment. "But I'll do it alone."

Sam blinked at him, and for a moment, Dean thought he would laugh. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, man. Can't you see? I'm...I'm poison. Sam, people get close to me, they get killed." He gestured to Sam, the prime example. "Or worse. And I...tell myself that I...I help people and I tell myself that I'm doing it all for the right reasons and I-I believe that. But I can't...I _won't_ drag anybody through the mud with me like that. I won't."

_I can't drag _you_ through the mud like that again, Sammy. I won't._

Those sad eyes stared at him intently, searching for something that he was disappointed Sammy couldn't seem to find. "Go," he said finally. "I'm not gonna stop you."

And the words, cold and cruel, were like a slap to the face, but Dean couldn't find it in himself to blame Sam for them.

Dean nodded, glancing toward Cas in goodbye, before licking his lips and walking away. Just like that.

The silence was defeaning, and Dean just wanted to make it to the car before he broke down.

Sam's voice cut through his morbid thoughts, causing the older Winchester to tense in surprise.

"But don't go thinking that's the problem 'cuz it's not," he said, and, for an instant, Dean was reminded of a much younger, much more naive Sam, the Sam who still believed Dean was capable of anything.

Dean paused, his legs shaking. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, not turning around.

For a moment, he thought Sam was going to call him back, to insist that no matter what manner of poison Dean carried with him, they would get through it, somehow. Together.

It was the sort of chick-flick nonsense Sam might have spouted when they were younger. Before all this. Before Sam grew up. Dean had dreaded it, at the time. Had mocked Sam for it, and yet, now, he found himself missing it desperately.

"Just go," Sam said instead, and he did.


End file.
